Sharing an art story from my childhood

When I was in elementary school, I would guess around the age of seven or eight, I was sitting in my art class with my classmates. To put it in context this would have been in the very early 1960's. The art lesson was just to draw whatever we felt like. So I was drawing rocket ships, since I was very interested in the space program and exploration of space. (I've explained in previous blog postings that I had a teenage neighbor who was an amateur astronomer and very generous in his sharing his interest with me when I was very small). The teacher, a woman, would walk around glancing down at what each child was drawing.

To my horror she grabbed my drawing and said to the whole class. "Look at this! A GIRL is drawing rocket ships! Why aren't YOU BOYS drawing rocket ships?" I'll never forget the stricken looks on the boys' faces. What an ignorant bitch! Just because I was drawing rockets she de-balled these poor boys who were probably happily drawing cars, boats, dogs, farms (we were in a rural area after all) and that was perfectly fine.

Now many of you younger readers might think she was an early "women's libber" and that this is a good thing, but you'd be wrong. If she was for women's rights she would have quietly coached each child to draw what they wanted to, whether "traditional" or "not." She'd not have pounced on me because my "doing my thing" would have been good and natural, would it not? And she used my drawing not as an encouragement to the girls (though I'd ask, why disturb what people are naturally drawing anyway) but as a castrating weapon toward the boys. She probably did more to put boys off of art on that day than anything.

As a therapist who has used art in counseling I learned that many people have horrible art experiences of over criticism as children and therefore become stuck at around the ages of 8 to 10 in their ability. But there was a special disagreeable twist to how this bitch used my leisurely activity to make undeserving children feel bad. I've often thought back to this and other experiences and also recognize that these were early signs of some people's very destructive and unhealthy personal obsession toward me and even my most innocent activities. That's the problem with projecting warped beliefs onto others, because you then use your sacred job to abuse the development of others. What was shocking then I now see everywhere, institutionalized.

How much worse this would have been if the Holy Spirit had not guided me in every action since I was the smallest baby. I remained very conservative in my interests and activities (when I took up a few hang gliding lessons at the age of 40 people who knew me just about fainted, and it had taken a lot of urging from my previous best friend to even try that out). It's sickening to think about how people glommed onto my every move as a message and example to warp and distort the lives of other children and adults. A lot of dirty water over the dam.